Steelhead marinated in honey soy and garlic

I’m so excited to share this recipe because living on the west coast, salmon tends to be in higher supply than in other parts of Canada, and when it’s in season, we have a lot of fresh salmon which is even better. We are so lucky. That being said, it is still early spring, and we don’t have an abundance of salmon flooding the supermarkets just yet. So when I have a salmon craving, I opt for steelhead or rainbow trout.

Steelhead and rainbow trout are actually the same species, Oncorhynchus mykiss, and they are phylogenetically more similar to Pacific salmon (sockeye, Chinook, coho, pink, and chum) than Pacific salmon are to Atlantic salmon (the species that is most frequently farmed). People usually refer to steelhead when they talk about a stock that spends most of its life in the ocean before migrating back to freshwater like a salmon. Rainbow trout is a stock that stays in freshwater. However if you think you’re eating wild steelhead/rainbow trout, think again. There are almost no commercial fisheries for this species, only sports fishing exists. If you buy steelhead/rainbow trout from a supermarket or fish monger, I am 99.9% sure that it is farmed. Which is a good thing if you’re looking to eat a salmonid type fish off-season! Farmed steelhead/rainbow trout is sustainable too, which is great and a priority for me.

This recipe is super quick and easy. It requires no marinating time and it’s on the table in less than 30min if you’re efficient in the kitchen. It’s super tasty and as someone who normally doesn’t like sweetness in their savoury food, the honey in this recipe actually goes really well with the fish and isn’t cloyingly sweet. It’s also a nice alternative to the way I normally make salmon/trout which is to simply use butter, garlic, lemon, and maybe some dill.

Ingredients

Steelhead fillets, deboned

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup honey

8 garlic cloves, chopped

Broccolini

Method

Preheat oven to 425F.

Mix together the soy sauce, honey and chopped garlic.

In a baking dish, spoon the mixture over the fish coating evenly, and reserving some.

Dip the broccolini heads in the sauce to coat well, and arrange in the baking dish together with the fish.